By Business & Finance 
Pictured (from l-r): Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI, accepts the Grace Hopper Award from Ian Hyland, President of Catalyst Media Group and Publisher of Business & Finance
Catalyst Media Group welcomed the digital leaders shaping the technology landscape of Ireland and abroad to the historic Stephen’s Green club to celebrate the achievements of Sarah Friar, CFO of Open AI, and to launch the start of Dublin Tech Summit 2025.
Catalyst Media Group hosted an evening at the historic Stephen’s Green Club to honour Sarah Friar, CFO of Open AI, with the Grace Hopper Award and to launch Dublin Tech Summit 2025.
Oisin Lunny hosted proceedings. He introduced Ian Hyland, President of Catalyst Media Group and Publisher of Business & Finance, who spoke about the growth of Dublin Tech Summit and the prospect of welcoming over 8,500 attendees to the festival over two days. He added it was an opportunity for Ireland to showcase the growth and innovation of the indigenous industry in this country.
Oisin Lunny, marketer, broadcaster and DTS MC
“This annual dinner is one of the most important platforms across DTS as it harnesses the power and breadth of the networks we have created in Ireland and internationally,” he said.
Hyland noted that this year is an especially unique occasion “as we gather to celebrate the outstanding achievements of Sarah Friar, CFO of Open AI.”
He continued by welcoming representatives from Accenture, who partnered with DTS for the occasion.
“I know Accenture themselves are no strangers to advancing AI to drive business change and I’m delighted to welcome Paula Neary, Rachel Elliston and their colleagues this evening.”
Pictured (L-R): Ian Hyland and Sarah Friar
DTS will soon approach a decade since it was founded “on the ambition to reaffirm Dublin as a global centre for technology and innovation”, Mr Hyland said.
“But back when DTS was founded, AI was something that was only used in farming terminology. Today, it is at the heart of everything we do and every innovation that lies ahead. I am delighted that tonight, we recognise someone who is leading the charge on AI advancements and look forward to taking more about Sarah later.”
Grace Hopper Award
Named in honour of the pioneering computer scientist, the Grace Hopper Award honours the extraordinary contributions, leadership, and perseverance of an exceptional woman leader who stands as a symbol of empowerment and inspiration for future generations of female leaders in the tech industry.
The award was presented to Friar in recognition of her career. Said Hyland: “This recognition recognises not only Sarah’s remarkable professional achievements but also her profound influence on the landscape of innovation and her dedication to fostering inclusivity in the tech industry, particularly now in the field of AI at the forefront of one of the world’s most influential companies.
“As someone who has chronicled business leaders for longer than I care to admit and moreover, as the Dad to a 26 year old Sydney-based daughter, who is a budding entrepreneur, Sarah’s career is nothing short of inspiring.”
Pictured (L-R): Rachel Elliston, Managing Director, Client Account Lead, Software & Platforms North America Industry Lead, Accenture, Sarah Friar, CFO, OpenAI, and Paula Neary, Senior Managing Director, Communications, Media and Technology, Accenture
Hyland said that, as the CFO of OpenAI, Friar is helping guide one of the most “transformative organisations of our time”.
“Under her leadership, OpenAI continues to redefine the boundaries of artificial intelligence, ensuring that this powerful technology is developed responsibly and for the benefit of humanity.”
Prior to her current role, Friar made her mark as the CEO of Nextdoor, a social network for communities, where she used technology to bring people together.
As CFO of Square, a system for helping merchants manage business operations, she was instrumental in scaling the company into a global force for financial empowerment.
Her earlier experiences at McKinsey and Goldman Sachs laid the foundation for a career built on strategic acumen and innovative thinking.
“Yet, Sarah’s impact goes far beyond her impressive CV”, Hyland said.
“Throughout her journey, she has championed the advancement of technology not just as a tool for efficiency, but as a means of creating equity and opportunity.
“Perhaps most inspiring is her tireless advocacy for women in technology and entrepreneurship. As a co-founder of Ladies Who Launch, Sarah has supported countless female founders, providing them with the resources, mentorship, and encouragement to turn their ideas into thriving businesses.
“She understands that empowering women in tech isn’t just about leveling the playing field – it’s about unlocking the full potential of innovation by ensuring diverse voices are at every table in every room.
“Sarah embodies the spirit of Grace Hopper, a pioneering innovator whose legacy continues to inspire generations of technologists. Like Grace Hopper, Sarah sees technology not merely as an end, but as a means to build a better, more inclusive future.
“Her leadership and advocacy remind us all of the power we have to create meaningful change when we invest in people and ideas that challenge the status quo.”
Pictured: Matt Cooper speaks to Sarah Friar.
Forging A Path
After a meal, guests were treated to a fireside chat between Friar and veteran journalist and broadcaster Matt Cooper.
“I was always mad about science and maths”, said Friar, who grew up in Sion Mills in County Tyrone in the north of Ireland, and attended Strabane Grammar School.
“I loved nothing better than taking my mom’s hoover to bits and then trying to put it all back together again, usually with a few screws that I wasn’t quite sure where they went, proving that men probably designed that and women figured that these were surplus to requirements.
“I did also grow up in a small community, right? And so for my mom and dad, they really wanted me to be a doctor, a lawyer, or an accountant, and when I picked engineering, which was not that common, it definitely unnerved them, and then I doubled down on that move by taking a year out, which really threw them for a complete loop because then they were really concerned about what I was going to do in life.
“It always reminds me that we have to, how do we create for our kids the jobs that they’re going to go towards and not the jobs that we all came from. If my world was changing in what felt fast in the 80s and 90s when I was going off to university, how different is it for our kids today?”
Ladies Who Launch
Cooper asked Friar about the Ladies Who Launch, a nonprofit that celebrates and empowers women entrepreneurs
“I was working at Square”, she said. “We wanted to do something at the time for International Women’s Day, and we were doing it in San Francisco. We said, ‘let’s bring along a whole bunch of Square sellers, but women.’ We created this whole conference and I was feeling great about it. I was like, ‘I’ve got the thing nobody else can get: Jack Dorsey is going to show up to my conference.’
“Jack was our closer, but we just had these amazing women who built amazing businesses … In the survey afterwards, everyone said, ‘Jack is pretty good,’ but there was this resounding response about how much they had gotten from listening to other women.”
Friar realised when you listen to the women on stage, they often talk about their “failure moment”, the thing that was really hard and how they picked themselves back up again.
“And again, I don’t want to sound like I’m not horribly sexist and gender stereotypical, but men often talk about their successes and that the definition of success even tends to be a little bit more homogeneous.
“I was like, ‘there’s a breakthrough here, we have to keep doing this’, and so we went out and we did a bunch of events. It kind of got bigger than Square. We spun it out and it has kind of been on a roll ever since.”
Human Ingenuity
“Sarah, just talking to you, a number of things strike me”, said Cooper.
“You have an incredible ability to retain information, to gather information and retain it, to interpret it, to apply it imaginatively and to be able to communicate it. I don’t think anyone in the room is going to disagree with me, but is this essentially what artificial intelligence will never be able to do, that it can give you all of the information, but there are going to be people who are going to apply that information in a way that no computer could ever have thought of?”
“I think we’re just going to find incredible ways to harness this technology,” replied Friar. “But human endeavor, entrepreneurship, creativity is just going to keep going … with my finance team, teaching them the art of storytelling, ChatGPT can help them with that, but storytelling is very personal. Like, there’s an authentic nature to telling a story. This is an edge I think humans will always keep. I think our ability for collaboration with one another is different from what machines do.”
Accenture
Accenture, the global professional services company, partnered with Catalyst Media on the evening’s proceedings. “We work with clients across the world with over 800,000 employees, and we’ve been in Dublin for over 56 years now”, said Paula Neary, Senior Managing Director, Communications, Media and Technology at Accenture.
“Dublin actually is the home of our global R&D centre … We work with clients across almost every industry, supporting them to navigate and implement complex change. We’re very much focusing on the potential of AI and working on how that can transform industries, looking at processes, how we reinvent them, how we drive more value, whether that’s through improving processes, making them more efficient, or how we enhance the customer and client experience.”
“We’re very, very excited to be here today. Accenture are delighted to partner with Dublin Tech Summit, with tech leaders both global and local, and to acknowledge the fantastic achievements of Sarah Friar, the global CFO for OpenAI. I think Dublin has a great reputation for innovation, and I think Dublin Tech Summit is a fantastic opportunity to showcase the thriving ecosystem of local and global tech leadership that is here.”
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